The Corpse with the Crystal Skull

by Cathy Ace

  “And was this many years ago?” I asked, sounding as innocent as possible.

  Lottie paused, with a forkful of rice hovering in front of her face. She shook her head. “I don’t know, but not long after Prince Charles married Diana, I shouldn’t think; John mentioned how much Emily had spent on her wedding dress, because she’d wanted to look just like Princess Di. That fad didn’t last very long, I don’t believe, and with good reason. Diana’s frock looked like it was made out of a crumpled old parachute. I’ve seen it in photos.”

  I had no idea how long said fad might have lasted, but it allowed me to anchor John’s first marriage to the early 1980s, which I realized was before Lottie had even been born. I allowed myself five seconds to feel very, very old.

  “John and Emily married in 1984,” said Bud. His tone told me he didn’t understand why I was pursuing this conversation.

  “Of course, you know him well, don’t you, Bud?” said Lottie. “See, you could have asked your husband all this.”

  Bud’s nothing if not quick on the uptake, and supportive of me, so he helpfully said, “I know when he was married, and to whom, but I don’t know much about his personal life really – just key dates, names, places, that sort of thing.”

  “You chaps don’t give much away, not even to each other, do you?” observed Lottie. “Daddy’s always been the same, too. It must be the job.”

  “I expect so.” Bud sounded resigned.

  “And that was the beginning of the end for them, then?” I queried. “John and Emily.”

  Lottie waved a hand. “I believe so. He told me about her, and what happened, but not a lot more than that. She was dead about a year later, I know that much. Shot herself. In the heart, of all things. One always imagines that a person shooting themself would do it in the head – the logistics, if nothing else, would dictate that, you’d think. But, no, she shot herself through the heart. John took it rather badly, of course. It was a message to him, you see, that he’d broken her heart by rejecting her. Said so in the note, apparently. Anyone want a drink?” Lottie waggled her empty glass.

  Bud and I declined, and Lottie headed out to the kitchen.

  I couldn’t believe Lottie was able to speak of a woman’s death in such a matter of fact way. I wondered if she’d have used the same tone if John had been in the room with us. Of course, I’d raised the topic for the very reason that he wasn’t there, and reckoned the best way I could get information from her was if she felt she could speak freely. But that level of dismissiveness? I wondered how much she really felt for John; I could never speak about Bud’s late wife’s death that coolly. I could even hear her singing Montego Bay to herself as she rattled about in the fridge.

  As soon as Lottie was out of earshot I whispered, “Someone else shot in the heart? Did you know about this, Bud? What if the man John’s wife had a fling with was Freddie? What if John knew that, and therefore had a really good reason to want Freddie dead? What if he chose to kill him exactly the way his ex-wife had killed herself?”

  Bud sat back in his chair and scratched his hand through his hair. “Come off it, Cait. That’s stretching the concept of coincidence way past breaking point. What would John’s young bride be doing having a fling with someone like Freddie? It’s inconceivable. And I can tell by that eyebrow of yours that you’re about to try to argue with me about it but don’t. Just don’t. John? Emily? Freddie? No, Cait. You cannot possibly imagine that John’s wife’s suicide was also precipitated by Freddie Burkinshaw…that’s just…ridiculous!”

  I hovered on the edge of telling Bud that the current set of circumstances under which I found myself living was forcing me to reassess my previous understanding of the word “ridiculous”, but I was prevented from debating the point with him because we were interrupted.

  “Sorry about being a bit late,” said John as he entered the dining room from the lounge.

  I wondered how long he’d been close by, and what he might have heard. “I had to finish the call,” he added.

  Taking a seat beside Lottie’s empty chair he leaned in to whisper to Bud, “By the way, the police reports have arrived. We’ve managed to get a copy of the entire thing. Pre-bedtime reading, I think. I emailed the file to you, and Jack.” He looked around the room. “Where is he, and Sheila?”

  Lottie returned smiling, carrying a can of Ting.

  Bud replied, quickly. “Sheila might have needed to get her leg up. Jack went to check on her.”

  “Fair enough. More for us then, eh? I’m starving. What’s left?” John poked at the dishes and mounded food onto his plate.

  My goat curry was starting to congeal, and the conch tasted like lumps of rubber in curry sauce; it was good curry sauce – but not good conch, so I worked around it and scooped up the sauce with my bammy and rice.

  “I put some into another dish, in the oven,” announced Lottie as we finally cleared the plates and dishes. “What do you think – should I take it over to Jack and Sheila’s bungalow?”

  Knowing how angry Sheila had been with me I answered, “I think that’s a good idea, Lottie. Maybe we can put together a tray with everything they might want, then knock, and leave it outside their door?”

  Everyone agreed my idea was sound, so we did just that; I was a wimp and let John take the tray across. Then I wondered what we should all do next. There wasn’t even the remotest possibility I could relax, but it was only just gone nine. I also really wanted to read the police reports the men had managed – who knew how – to get hold of. I suspected Bud felt the same.

  “Fancy a swim?” Lottie asked John when he returned.

  “So soon after dinner?” I said.

  Lottie laughed. “Yes, so soon. Mummy and Daddy would never let me swim for an hour after I’d eaten – they convinced me when I was a small child that to do such a thing would inevitably lead to cramps and immediate drowning.”

  “There’s a lot of truth in that,” said John.

  “Not in a pool, with you,” said Lottie. “Come on, John, I’m desperate to do something fun. Please?”

  I could see that – whatever her feelings for John – Lottie had the poor man wrapped around her little finger.

  He capitulated. “Just half an hour, then I do need to get some reading done. Just a quick little something for work, okay?”

  Lottie smiled playfully. “Half an hour. Deal. Night, night folks,” she waved and ran toward their bungalow.

  “Come on,” I said to Bud, “let’s get reading. I don’t think I can bear to see her in yet another tiny bikini, especially not when I’m feeling as stuffed as I am right now. Fancy taking one of those sinfully expensive brandies with us, though?”

  Bud chuckled, “Now that I know how much it costs, I’ll probably never be able to bring myself to have another sip.”

  John smiled. “Freddie poured us good brandy, so what? Have you seen how much of it he has in the back of the pantry out there? Go for it, Bud. Take a whole bottle. He’s gone, drink it in his memory.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Bud. “There isn’t any more brandy in the pantry.”

  John looked puzzled. “There is. Ten bottles. Saw them when I was out there the other day. Day we got here. I was being introduced to Amelia in the kitchen. Couldn’t help but notice it. It’s excellent cognac.”

  “Hang on a minute,” said Bud, walking toward the kitchen. “When Amelia showed me and Cait around the kitchen – after Freddie had died – I know we had a good search around the pantry, and I certainly would have noticed ten of those fancy bottles. Let’s have a look.”

  All three of us checked the pantry, but there were no more bottles.

  “Hand on my heart, Bud,” said John, “there was a row of those bottles on that shelf, right at the back, behind the vegetable racks. I specifically noticed them because I adore Remy Martin Louis XIII, but rarely, if ever, have the chance to drink it. When Freddie started splashing it about after dinner for us, I assumed we were h
elping him work his way through his extraordinary stock. Where can it all have gone?”

  “I don’t know. That’s a puzzler,” said Bud. “In any case, it’s not something I should acquire a taste for, so I’m happy to grab a few beers to take to the fridge in our room, and sip through what might be a long and interesting night of reading. Now you’d better go and get into your world-famous Speedos for that gal of yours, hadn’t you, John?”

  “Hardy-har-har,” said John, as he left us to join Lottie.

  “That’s about thirty- to forty-thousand-dollars-worth of brandy that’s disappeared from this pantry,” I noted. “If John’s telling the truth.”

  “Why on earth would he lie about that?” asked Bud.

  “Maybe he’s pathologically incapable of telling the truth, or maybe he’s learned how to lie about everything as part of his training and trade craft. Maybe he likes to throw out improbable lies just to keep his hand in, I don’t know.”

  “Cait, that’s not fair.”

  “Look, Bud, I’m up to here with all this secrecy stuff. Every time we face a problem in life, we face it head on, together. This time? This time I feel like you’re not one hundred percent on my side. As though you’re not ‘all in’. It’s unsettling, and I’m off-kilter enough with everything else at the moment. I’m even forgetting things, and what good am I if I can’t remember everything?”

  Bud sighed. “Come on, Cait, not this again. What have you remembered that you’d forgotten this time?”

  I had a quiet word with myself before I spoke. “I forgot to tell you that I love you often enough today.” I flashed my winning smile at my husband, who hugged me.

  “Police reports,” he said, and off we went with half a dozen beers and a spring in our step.

  Reports and Refreshments

  “I’m going to take advantage of this cool night air and sit outside to read. Coming?” I was so pleased to not be a sweaty mess that I wanted to enjoy as much of the less humid nighttime as possible. “But I might just jump into the shower first, then I’ll be nice and fresh to start with. These past couple of weeks I’ve felt sticky all the time.”

  “Thanks for sharing, and if that’s the case it sounds like a shower’s a real good idea,” replied Bud. “I’ll email the reports to you too so we can each read them on our own devices, at our own pace. When you’ve finished in the shower, I know you’ll be easily able to catch up with me.”

  When I rejoined Bud I was delightfully un-sweaty, had left my hair to dry naturally, and was ready for a beer and some reading. Bud had already finished his studies, which surprised me.

  “Don’t panic,” he said. “It’ll take you about five minutes. Their reports are woefully lacking. There’s the lab report, and the police report that was filed immediately after they found Freddie, when they believed it was a suicide. It’s pretty thin.”

  He was right. “Oh dear. They really didn’t expect that autopsy to go the way it did, did they?” I said.

  “Nope, and I can see why not. To be honest, even the ackee wouldn’t necessarily make them immediately think there was a killer to track down, but put the bullet wounds and the ackee together, and that’s why they’re back at the tower now, with the entire building taped off.”

  “True. That said, these photos are interesting. At least we can see now what we couldn’t see through the keyhole, and what had been removed by the time we carried out our examination of the room,” I said. “Look here.” I pointed to the photographs of the body, in situ. Bud scrolled to his own copies. “See how the wound on Freddie’s chest is high? I’m no anatomy specialist, but I would say that suggests a shot that went in above his heart, then tracked downwards to hit it – which the autopsy said it did. And that’s odd. Also, I can’t see any scorching that would suggest the gun was in contact with his shirt. What do you make of those two points?”

  Bud scrolled. “You’re right, I can’t see any scorching either, but there’s a lot of blood, so we might not be able to notice it if there were any. The already knew the report from the autopsy said there were no signs of gunshot residue anywhere on the body, and this subsequent report from the lab – scroll to the end, it’s there – says there was none found on Freddie’s clothes either. I’m putting money on that being one of the main reasons for the police now treating this case as murder. There’s no way for someone to shoot themselves and not have some sort of residue somewhere on their person. Also, the gun on the floor beside the body is a Walther PPK with a suppressor attached––”

  “I spotted that in the report,” I interrupted. “It’s like the one people always say is ‘James Bond’s gun’ – even though it isn’t. Well, not always. Not until the later books when he’d been forced to give up his Beretta.”

  “If you say so, Wife,” said Bud, using his patient voice.

  “Having had the benefit of seeing what types of items he hid away up in his tower, I would suggest that might turn out to be Freddie’s own gun; one of his ‘rare and collectible’ possessions, maybe.”

  “Fine,” said Bud, sounding less patient, “but let’s put aside the whole Bond thing for one moment, and think about the logistics. That suppressor makes the barrel of the gun too long for someone to use it to shoot themselves in the chest with any degree of comfort, especially with a downward, rather than an upward, trajectory.”

  “Comfort?”

  “You know what I mean. Look.” Bud stood, and demonstrated how far from Freddie’s body the trigger would have been if he’d used the gun in the photo to kill himself. “He’d have had to have pressed the muzzle against his upper pectoral, pointing down toward his heart, then pulled the trigger with his left thumb, or both of his thumbs, with his elbow way up here in the air. I realize we’re trying to imagine the mindset of someone about to end their life, but that seems incredibly awkward to me. And why the suppressor in the first place? The gun would be much shorter and more manageable without it, so why bother? If Freddie had really shot himself, why worry about anyone hearing the shot – not that a suppressor makes that much difference to the noise a gun makes in any case. No idea why they call them ‘silencers’ – they certainly don’t make a shot ‘silent’.”

  I smiled. “I knew you’d be good on the gun stuff, Husband.”

  Bud shrugged, and sat. “So, we’re convinced he didn’t shoot himself. The next question is, why the elaborate set-up to suggest he might have done so?”

  “If it hadn’t been for the ackee, do you think the police would have really considered murder?”

  Bud took a glug from his beer. “Reading this initial report, written by Sergeant Swabey, he made it quite clear that his determination of the scene as that of a suicide accounted for all the facts. Which, to be fair, isn’t a bad assessment. Upon receipt of the autopsy, however, showing the presence of overripe ackee in the victim’s stomach contents and the lack of gunshot residue on the body, plus the subsequent lab report about the lack of gunshot residue on the clothing, Swabey’s original assertions were – again quite rightly – thrown into question. It’s clear those reports would have been prepared whether foul play had been suspected or not, as we can see…because they were, and it wasn’t. The local authorities were thorough, and really fast – considering how long this sort of report can take to get hold of back home.”

  “Okay, then, maybe a killer with an understanding of local police procedures would know that a suspicion of foul play would eventually transpire. So…maybe the killer wanted Freddie’s death to be initially ruled a suicide, to give them a chance to…do something they couldn’t do if it was immediately suspected as a murder?”

  “Like what?” asked Bud.

  I searched my mind. “There were at least two sets of papers missing from Freddie’s desk in that tower room. I couldn’t see the entire room through the keyhole, but I did see them. But now the papers have gone. Between the time the police left the tower with Freddie’s body, and our entering it, the room was open for anyon
e to gain access. The main entry to the building was locked, as we agreed, though with more of a chance of someone having been able to gain entry via what was a more ‘normal’ locked door than the one to the tower room itself.”

  “Good points, Wife. None of them lost on me. You couldn’t see exactly what the papers were, could you?” His tone was plaintive.

  “No, I’d have told you if I had. I merely saw a bundle of what looked to be much-thumbed loose sheets, judging by their edges, secured under what I now know to have been the crystal skull, and a roll of several large sheets of paper, tied with a blue ribbon.”

  “Maybe the killer wanted those papers, specifically. Maybe Freddie wouldn’t give them up. They were in his tower room, after all, and that’s where you said he kept his private treasures. I hate to say this aloud, but I have to because it’s crawling around inside my head – what if the papers that were in a bundle on Freddie’s desk were the very ones we’re after? That would be terrifying. I was that close to them, but now they’re gone.”

  “I know, Bud. Of course that’s crossed my mind too. But we could speculate all night about what the bundle, or the scroll, might have been, so I think that’s a pretty fruitless task,” I said. “There is, however, the critical question of why the killer didn’t take the papers with them immediately after killing Freddie. Which might suggest…”

  “…the killer didn’t want the papers at all, and someone else did…or the killer only realized later on that they wanted, or needed them,” added Bud. He began to scratch his head. Not good.

  “I tell you what, instead of dwelling on that, let’s consider the other information in this initial police report. They noted the vomit, they noted the gun and the body, but they also noted the lack of obvious signs of ingress or egress by anyone other than Freddie, as they should. They took a photo of the key to the tower room, which they removed from Freddie’s trouser pocket. I still think it’s weird that Freddie had it in his pocket…but, taking that thought, why might he have had it in his pocket? Do we think someone was inside the room with Freddie, they shot him, put the key in his pocket to consolidate the idea that Freddie had locked himself in, then they somehow got out by some so far impossible-to-determine means?”